


Here We Go Again: Another Way - Book 1

by BillieBanshee



Series: Here We Go Again [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, More tags as the series progresses, Other, Post-Save Chloe Price Ending, Rewind - Freeform, Work In Progress, spoopy ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:33:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BillieBanshee/pseuds/BillieBanshee
Summary: After being haunted by the ghosts of the Arcadia Bay disaster, Max goes on a mission to discover how to rewind one last time and save everyone.Book 1 of the Here We Go Again series





	1. Another Way - Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. I own Pippin and the future original characters that will come. Everything else belongs to the creators of Life Is Strange.

It all started on a Monday dawn, maybe only just a little after 3 am. Max was awoken with a start, her beloved plant named Lisa Jr falling over on the floor with a loud bang. The brown haired girl sat up in her bed, blinking rapidly, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. She could only just make out a figure, standing in the corner of her room by her desk, right where Lisa Jr should be on top of.

The figure was a dark shadow, darker than the dark room itself. It moved in a way that could only be described as dancing - but not in the rhythmic and groovy way Chloe would - no, it was awkward and jerky, sharp and fast. It was there, by the desk, and then it wasn't. And then it was there again, but closer to Max's bed. The process repeated until it came to a halt beside her, peering down at her. The figure began to spread and separate into multiple figures of all shapes and sizes, causing the room to grow colder and colder until Max's hair stood up on edge, the sensation of dread seeping into her core until she felt sick and couldn't move.

Her eyes stay wide awake, focusing on the figures that now merely shimmered and paced around her room, growing and growing until the whole room itself was a dark mist practically engulfing her. This lasted for hours until they, the figures, faded into nothingness at sunrise.

This happened every night, weeks on end until one day there was nothing. No dark figures, no sense of dread, nothing. Instead, she had a dream. A dream where she was back in Arcadia Bay and in her dorm room. She was stood by the window, looking out upon the courtyard. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and everything was alive and well - a much different state to how Arcadia Bay was left in. There was no dead bodies lying about and no collapsed buildings. It was comforting...

"Beautiful, isn't it?" An unfamiliar female voice spoke, her tone soft and sad with a hint of underlying bitterness. The sound of a squeaking mattress could be heard, followed by the sound of footsteps which came to a halt beside the freckle-faced girl.

"Yeah, it is." Max breathed, continuing to gaze at what was and should have been. Sure Max had regrets, but at least she still had Chloe. The thought of living without her best friend was painful. She made the right choice. Max was certain of it. She'd never leave her - never again. Her eyes glanced to the person beside her through the reflection of the window, only just realising that she did not know who this person was, or why they were in her room.

"I don't want to be rude," Max started quietly, shifting to face her fully. Her blue eyes examined the girl, starting from her head, going all the way down to her toes, "but who are you?"

"Does it matter?" The unknown person replied, her light olive arms crossing over her chest. The female was pretty, but not too pretty. She was very average looking, around 5'7 or 5'8 and on the chunky side. She had extremely curly Afro textured dark brown hair and brown eyes, glasses, full lips and a button nose with a rather flat bridge. She was quite likely mixed raced.

"Well,-" Max was cut off by the girl, who was clearly about to go on an unprovoked rant, her British accent starting to become more obvious.

"Well," The girl interjected with a mocking voice before swiftly going back her normal one, "You don't care. You never have done. You're selfish and you only care about yourself - you don't care about the consequences and you don't care about what you've done. Do you even  _know_ what you've done, Maxine Caulfield? You killed me and I swear to god if you try and wake up to get out of this you'll regret it."

Max stood there, watching her with wild eyes; was this another nightmare or was this real? Real as in a real dream made of imagination, or a real dream encounter with a ghost? What was this? Giving a curt nod, Max slowly moved to the couch, picking up the guitar that lay on the cushioned surface and laying it on the floor before sitting down. Leaning against the couch back, she gestured to the girl in a 'Go on' motion. Surprisingly, the girl took the space beside her. This could turn out to be a really calm and civil conversation.

Max wouldn't admit it, but at first she had no idea what this girl was on about. But when the girl mentioned she had killed her - god... her stomach just sank. She felt like she was going to puke. Sure this may not be real, but it wasn't violent and scary dream - and just incase it was real, all Max could do was listen.

"My name is Pippin Smith. Most just call me Smithy or Pip. I went here... I died in the storm. I don't know if you've been back to Arcadia Bay yet Blackwell is pretty much destroyed. Almost everyone inside died - hell most of Arcadia died. The population was around 800, now it's 413. 387 lives were lost because of you. 387 people killed because you didn't want to lose a single person. You completely disregarded her feelings and let her family die because you wanted her around. My family died, I died, your other friends died - my friends died. Everyone died and you didn't bat an eye because all that mattered was what  _you_  thought. We've been talking, we've been watching, and we've seen how you just ignore the aftermath and repercussions of what you've done. We've seen how you.... How you just don't even care-"

"Pippin, I do care-" Max interrupted, moving to place a hand on the other girls knee, wanting to be comforting. The girl didn't react to it, perhaps that meant she was warming up to Max, or maybe she just didn't notice due to being engrossed and focused on the rant that had clearly been building up over some time. It felt well planned out at first, but Max noticed how she repeated herself some times. She seemed to be quite emotional to the point of looking like she was fighting back tears.

"But do you? Do you really? You ripped up the last thing that could have saved us all, you didn't even think if there was another way." Pippin cut in, her eyes unblinking, like she was staring deep into Max's soul. They had held the stare for a moment until Pippin looked away, her brown eyes moving to look out the window. Max noted the girl took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling.

"If there was another way, I'd fix it. But there isn't." Max reassured, following her gaze. It really was beautiful; it was a shame it was all gone. Hearing the bitter laugh of Pippin made Max's eyes snap back to her. Pippin was looking at her now, the brown in her eyes seemingly much darker than they were before. Max couldn't help but feel like she was playing with fire right now.

"Hah! Remember back when there was another way... In fact two other ways? But all you could think about was letting Chloe down and not being able to live without her or the guilt of letting her die. You lasted all those years without her Max, you can do it again - You could have done it again."

Max's eyes studied the spirit in front of her, the lids squinting with suspicion, "How do you know all of this?" She wondered, "How did you know there was another way? How did you know I ripped it up? How do you even know any of this?"

"Your diary. You have 387 ghosts haunting your ass, one of them is gonna read over your shoulder-" Pippin replied with a roll of her eyes, as if to say 'duh'.

It was at that moment Max felt the cogs in her own brain spinning. There was no way that every ghost of every person was haunting her - how did they even find her? She was miles away from Arcadia Bay... unless they had some teleportation device? Wait, don't ghosts just haunt the location they died in? Shouldn't they all be back in Arcadia? Why are they haunting her— oh... never mind. Yeah she caused the storm. But still, they didn't know that, unless they really did read her journal. Even then, how did they even come round to following Max and opening the journal in the first place?

"You're not real." Max scoffed, shaking her head,"Guilt dreams yet again. Yay!" She cheered sarcastically as she shook her head, pushing herself off the couch to approach the window again, turning her back to the figure. "Time for me to wake up I think."

"If you wake up now you're going to see something really nasty," The spirit of Pippin warned, multiple emotions flickering over her face and eyes that Max couldn't see. Taking a deep breath, Pippin's tone turned into a more sympathetic one, possibly trying another way to do whatever she was trying to do. Maybe she was trying to act as Max's subconscious now? Was she trying to manipulate Max? "Every way you thought of ended with Chloe dying. Saving Chloe could have been done without your powers - quite easily in fact. Everything after could have been avoided if you weren't so reckless."

"It only started because I used them; the storm I mean. It all started when I used them. How could I have easily stopped Chloe dying the first time though?" Max wondered, giving Pippjn a weird look. Could Pippin have been right? Was there another way?

"Exactly. You should awake now." The girl said said, not even answering Max's question, giving her a look that seemed to be a little smug. However, the mischievous monster in Pip made her speak one final time, "Use your brain, Max. The way is what everyone else would have done." 


	2. Another Way - Chapter 2

Max went to speak, but nothing came out other than a quiet 'nnngh' as she rolled over in her bed, her eyes blinking open. It was around 5 am and the sunlight was slowly creeping in her room under the curtains. A soft yawn escaped her as she pushed herself up in the bed, sitting and blinking slowly. She felt frustrated and annoyed. She had so many questions and so little answers.

The brunette glanced around the room, her vision slowly coming into focus. There was no one in her room which was actually kind of comforting. She wasn't sure if what she had dreamt was legit, and even if it wasn't that dream girl had some good points. Climbing out of the bed, she had decided she had enough sleep for the night and spent her remaining time waiting in the lounge for Chloe to wake up.

~*~*~

Chloe awoke around 11 am, as usual. Her blue and pink hair was stuck up in almost every direction. Max could hear her trudging down the hallway, her mismatched socks scuffling across the carpet. A small smile twitched onto Max's lips as an obnoxiously loud yawn escaping her friend. It was the yawn that got Max's attention, which was most likely Chloe's intention.

"Morning, Chloe," Max greeted with a smile, sipping her coffee in front of the TV. She sat in the corner of the couch, surrounded by an obnoxious amount of pillows - an idea she got off of Tumblr, her current hobby. Blogging had been something she was briefly in to, but now it was aesthetics. Before blogging it was writing, and before writing it was photography, and before photography it was drawing. Max had had many hobbies over the years, but none of them stuck... Perhaps the next one could be something outdoorsy like gardening? Wait, how about cooking? Chloe would like that... Oh! Right, Chloe. Another yawn came from the sleepy colourful girl as she stood in the doorway, clearly waiting for Max to ask the question.

"How was your sleep?"

"Nmh," Chloe responded with exaggerated exhaustion as she rubbed her eyes, stifling another yawn. Her fading blue hair stuck up in almost every direction, except on the back where it was flat from where she had been laying. Her words were pretty much gibberish, and her voice was hoarse, but the one bit of her sentence that Max  _did_ understand was "I heard you up early."

A dismissive shrug came from Max as she fiddled with a loose hem on one of the pillows in her lap. The pillow was one of Chloe's favourites - it was white with one word on it, written in black. Death. It was edgy, and Chloe said she got it ironically but Max knew all too well that she was still in her morbid phase.

"I had a bad dream, that's all." The response was technically true, and not really a lie, but Max could see the suspicious look in Chloe's eyes. Max was acting far too casual about this - she looked like she was trying to down play it. This got Chloe's attention, and naturally, she started prying.

"Werewolves again?" Chloe inquired, still standing in the doorway, her pretty blue eyes flickering from the pillow she was holding on to to Max's face. "Or some other? Was it aliens? I told you not to eat that cheese platter before bed, Max. It always makes you dream weird shit. Wait was it...  _y'know._.."

"About Arcadia, yeah, but..." Max trailed off, the mood getting a little tense, as usual. Max knew Chloe was still pretty hung up on her mother dying, even though she tried to play it off like it was no big deal since it was  _"years ago"_. The subject of Arcadia was a heavy one - one that no one really liked to talk about, but sometimes it came up and they had to deal with it. It  _was_ six years ago after all.

"But?" Chloe pried, now coming to sit beside Max. She gently placed a hand on her friend and lover's knee, giving it a soft squeeze as if to say 'Come on, tell me.'. Max visibly tensed up, causing Chloe to remove it. "Dude, just tell me. It was six years ago. I'm not gonna burst into tears, alright? I'm always here for you Max. You can tell me anything."

Max hesitated, her eyes staring down at the shabby chic rug below their feet. "Chloe, it wasn't like the other dreams... This one... This one felt real. Almost too real. Are you sure you want to know?"

"I'm sure."

~*~*~

"Wait so that smoke wasn't me tripping balls?!" Chloe exclaimed incredulously, "Holy shit, Max. I went to take a wizz and the whole hallway was shifting! I thought I just smoked a bad batch and I slept it off. Dude, we need to look into this. Like really look into it. If this whole thing could be avoided, we could go on living normally and I could get my mom back!... And that chick threatened you - if that dream was real that could be hella bad." She added on quickly at the end, as if to show she wasn't getting her hopes up. Max didn't say anything in response, she just listened to her and took all her words in. "Earth to Max?"

"She didn't threaten me per se'. She just... kinda said not to wake up and to listen to her. Chloe, what if she's right? What if there really is another way?"

"But then all the fun times won't have happened, we wouldn't be together and I'd be mad at you... and I'd be getting shot by that Prescott asshole... but then my mom would be alive." She said it again. Chloe was thinking about her mom, but she was right. Her mother would still be alive, Warren would still be alive. Everyone would still be alive and happy... But Chloe would be gone.

Max looked at Chloe, as if to say 'I know.' Chloe could see the guilty look in Max's eyes, but she continued to talk anyway. Chloe wanted this - She wanted it bad. "I say go for it. If there's a way to stop the storm and save everyone and me at once then fuck it. Go for it. Just - let me write something in your journal first okay? Or does that disappear too when you rewind? God. This is complicated. Wait no you write it for me so I know to believe it. I'll include some stuff only I'll know so I know it's true and then I'll believe you for sure and- and I'm talking too much and you can't get a word in." Chloe began to laugh. It wasn't a hearty laugh - it was an awkward one. A laugh that made Max flash her a tight smile and shake her head.

"No no, keep talking. It's giving me ideas." Max insisted, turning to face Chloe fully with a reassuring smile. Max took Chloe's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Please?"

"Alright.... Well, we don't have a picture though, of the butterfly, remember?" Chloe reminded, her lips thinning as the reality of the situation sunk in. With a sigh, she leant back on the couch, slumping down with defeat. "We aren't going back, are we?"

"No, we have no butterfly picture, but I'm sure we ca-"

"My mom had a memorabilia box." Interrupted Chloe, jumping up suddenly, causing Max to startle at the abrupt movement. The blue haired girl reached down, grabbing Max's arm, pulling her up, "Come on, get dressed. We're going to Arcadia."

Max grunted, feebly attempting to remove the grip on her arm, "Chloe, no. We can't just pack up and leave. We need a plan. The entire town is abandoned and looted so it's probably not even- Chloe stop.  _Chloe!_ " She snapped loudly, yanking her arm from Chloe's vice grip. "Sit down. We need to plan. You're forgetting things that are important and the fact I might not even have my powers still. Plus, if we're going back in time... Why don't we save everyone?"

"Everyone?"

"Yes... What if- What if we go back a little further? Maybe we can save Rachel too?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow for updates - https://billiebanshee.tumblr.com/


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